Album: Esben and the Witch, Violet Cries (Matador)

Andy Gill
Friday 28 January 2011 01:00 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Violet Cries offers a salutary lesson in the pitfall's of cultural prediction: for if Esben and the Witch can feature on the BBC's Sound of 2011 longlist, then there are clearly more than a few cloth-eared contributors to that list.

The group have been around for well over a year without arousing much of a stir, and the monumentally tedious poesie-rock of Violet Cries offers few hints that this should change. Swathed in flanged guitar, swells of cymbals and thunderously rolling tom-toms, with vocals that aren't so much sung as declaimed in fancifully "bewitching" manner, songs such as "Argyria" and "Hexagons IV" resemble Killing Joke in thrall to the natural world and unnatural sound effects devices, in roughly equal proportions. But however awed one's personal experience, paddling in a stream is still just paddling, and snow is just snow.

DOWNLOAD THIS Hexagons IV

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in